Karl Edwards presents Working Matters

Tag: leadership

  • Quote to Consider: Leadership Revisited

    quote-to-consider“There go the people. I must follow them for I am their leader.”

    Alexandre Ledru-Rollin

  • Listen In -> Visionary Leadership with Marion Skeete #1: Rethinking the Role and Responsibility

    There’s a lot of talk about leadership but not many leaders are making much of a difference.

    Stuck within paradigms based on power and prestige, leaders are at best recycling the latest fad or at worst resorting to fear-based patterns of conquest and control.

    Enter our guest, Marion Skeete, for a new discussion series on Visionary Leadership.

    Marion Skeete is the founder and president of LegacyMakers International, a movement committed to empowering leaders to influence their community and culture.

    Join Marion and I as we rethink leadership in terms of helping people see a future that is both of their own creation and within reach.

    The maps that we have relied on to get us where we are today may not be sufficient for the journey ahead. Hence the value and importance of visionary leaders to help us articulate new ways of seeing, speaking about and maturing into a different and better future.

    We don’t need new commanders-in-chief who pretend to know where we, the people, need to go; but thoughtful, serving leaders who will empower us to step into the futures that we want to build for ourselves and our families.

    Visionary Leadership with Marion Skeete
    Week #1:  Rethinking the Role and Responsibility
    Week #2:  Thinking Outside the Box
    Week #3:  Inspiring and Catalyzing Change
    Week #4:  Respecting and Involving People
    Week #5:  Cultivating a Language for Change

    Listen in.

  • Question of the Week #13

    What is the difference between having a distinct working style and not being a team player?

    The Question of the Week is offered to increase awareness of one’s personal leadership practices and encourage experimentation with creative alternatives.

  • Question of the Week #12

    How do you use your intuition as a tool in decision-making?

    The Question of the Week is offered to increase awareness of one’s personal leadership practices and encourage experimentation with creative alternatives.

  • Question of the Week #11

    What might you be doing that almost invites others to treat you the way they do?

    The Question of the Week is offered to increase awareness of one’s personal leadership practices and encourage experimentation with creative alternatives.

  • Listen In -> Good Leaders in Bad Times #5: Creating a Culture That Get Results

    One of our recent Questions of the Week was, “What disincentives to taking the initiative would a visitor observe in our company?” (Watch it here.)

    As we conclude our audio series on Good Leaders in Bad Times, we take a look at the workplace as a cultural system. (Our passion, I know. It might be risky to listen this week.)

    We are all familiar with the workaholic workplace culture. We know the fear-driven cultures, the cultures of panic, and the cultures of boredom. We know the workplaces where everyone wears masks of competence and works in splendid isolation as a result.

    We know the cultures of finger-pointing and blame-shifting. We know the workplaces that are always running at 100 mph, the ones who are always a day late and a dollar short, and those which have so many rules no one can use their judgment in making a decision.

    But what about a culture of results? What if, in the very fabric of how you went about your days, how you communicated with each other, and how you approached complex and difficult issues, you created a culture of getting results?

    What if?

    Listen in.

  • Question of the Week #9

    What is the difference between providing an explanation and making an excuse?

    The Question of the Week is offered to increase awareness of one’s personal leadership practices and encourage experimentation with creative alternatives.

  • Listen In -> Good Leaders in Bad Times #4: Reporting To Your Team

    What if you measured your effectiveness as a leader by the effectiveness of your team?

    At first blush there’s nothing unusual about the question. Leadership is measured by one’s ability to achieve results.

    At issue though, comes in the process of achieving those results. For whom do you really work?

    Are you looking back, over your shoulder, at those higher on the organizational chart? Or are you looking forward, at those who report to you?

    In this week’s show, Claudia and I suggest that leaders who report to their teams have a better chance of achieving results in tough times than those who report to their official bosses.

    Listen in.

  • Loving Monday: Focus and Push

    loving_mondayA phrase I find myself returning to more often than not is, “Focus and push.”

    There is a place for multi-tasking and working along a number of fronts. In fact, most leadership roles require as much. Systems thinking is an essential skill. The finances need monitoring, the schedules need to be maintained, the team must function with high levels of trust, energy and efficiency, and so the list goes on.

    Just as important, though, is recognizing when the time is right to focus and push. When what is called for is a concentrated, single-minded, all-out effort on one single matter.

    This week is one of those moments for me. Many important, valuable matters need to either be set aside entirely or merely brushed over in order to give my full attention to one solitary matter.

    Focus is the capacity to hone in on what is crucial and keep one’s attention there in spite of the many competing priorities and distractions.

    Pushing is the intentional organizing of one’s activities around a concentrated effort to make something happen. We are not going with the flow. We are creating the flow.

    How do you discern when you need to focus and push? At which end of the spectrum do you fall: do you tend to miss these moments or do you tend to focus and push at the expense of attending to the broader, multi-faceted dynamics taking place around you?

    On your side,

    – Karl Edwards

  • Question of the Week #8

    What disincentives to taking the initiative would a visitor observe in our company?

    The Question of the Week is offered to increase awareness of one’s personal leadership practices and encourage experimentation with creative alternatives.